An Analysis and Case Studies of Community Development and Economic Development and Their Relationship to Planning

This study began as an exploration of the fields of Economic Development and Community Development. By researching an extensive selection of literature, the two terms were defined and the disciplines expounded upon. The two were then compared and contrasted in their relationship to each other and their relationship to the field of Planning. A matrix was developed from the literary findings of the various functions of each field in relation to several community issues. Eight cities, selected from two population groups and four regions, were examined as case studies, to compare the functions of actual Community Development, Economic Development, and Planning Departments with those mentioned in the literature. Other city departments were researched as well, to see if they performed any of the functions given in the developed matrix. From the literature, it was determined that Community Development, Economic Development, and Planning are three distinct fields, with some overlap of functionality among the three. Thus a hypothesis was formulated that cities would have separate departments for the three areas, though they may work closely together. In the case studies, however, it was discovered that none of the cities had three separate departments of Community Development, Economic Development, and Planning. Some cities, such as Lawton, Oklahoma, had two of the three departments, while some cities, such as San Buenaventura, California, had only one of three (that performed several overarching functions). In all of the cities, there was an overlapping of functions. Thus, the hypothesis proved to be false in that though the literature considers the three to be separate fields, this is not truly applied in the real world. The functions of the three may be utilized: however, they may be applied by experts of another field, e.g. Community developers may facilitate economic development and/or planning

Unto the Least of These: The Pentecostal Church and Social Ministry

This project explores the relationship of Pentecostal churches in the U.S. to social ministry. Taken from the results of multivariate logistic regression and likelihood ratio tests utilizing the National Congregations Study , a nationally representative sample of US congregations, I found that Pentecostal congregations are statistically less likely to participate in social ministry than non-Pentecostal Christian congregations. Through chi-square analyses, I also found Pentecostal churches to be less likely than non-Pentecostal Conservative congregations to participate in social ministry. Through a series of interviews and observations of five Pentecostal Assemblies of God churches in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area, assessments were made on Pentecostal identity and Pentecostal perceived involvement in the community of Atlanta. Recommendations for further research are provided

Implicit Bias Predicts Liking of Ingroup Members Who Are Comfortable With Intergroup Interaction.

We test a novel framework for how ingroup members are perceived during intergroup interaction. Across three experiments, we found that, above and beyond egalitarian attitudes and motivations, White observers' automatic responses to Blacks (i.e., their implicit anti-Black bias) shaped their affiliation toward ingroup targets who appeared comfortable engaging in interracial versus same-race interaction. White observers' implicit anti-Black bias negatively correlated with liking of White targets who were comfortable with Blacks (Experiments 1-3). The relationship between implicit bias and liking varied as a function of targets' nonverbal comfort in interracial interactions (Experiment 1). Specifically, implicit bias negatively correlated with liking of targets when targets' nonverbal behaviors revealed observers felt comfortable with interracial contact, irrespective of the nature of those behaviors (Experiment 2). Finally, the relationship between implicit bias and target liking was mediated by perceived similarity (Experiment 3). Theoretical implications for stigma-by-association, social network homogeneity, and extended contact are discussed

Assessing the role of cloud computing in the strategic agility of banking

This manuscript assesses the role of a relatively new technology ‘cloud computing’ in achieving strategic agility within the UK banking sector. While there is research on how ‘cloud’ can enhance innovation capacity, there is little on the implications for strategic agility - an increasingly important topic in the IS/IT literature (Doz and Kosonen, 2010). Mell and Grance (2010) define cloud as: “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” Such new technologies have accelerated global competition per se and as a result organizations must be able to rapidly adapt their strategies as well as their operations; agility is ‘cascading’ up the organization from operations to C-Suite. Banking is no exception (Baskerville et al., 2005) and given the industry’s reputation for conservatism, we felt this was ripe for study since cloud and strategic agility are in tension with the industry’s usual pace of change. According to Lewis et al. (2014) organizational survival today very much depends on strategic agility, which in brief involves flexible and mindful responses to constantly changing environments. Our question is whether cloud enables or constrains such responses. According to Doz and Kosonen (2010) there are three dimensions to strategic agility: (i) Strategic sensitivity; (ii) Leadership unity; (iii) Resource fluidity. Can cloud deliver on all three dimensions for banking? We set out to explore these questions

An exploratory study assessing the role cloud computing has in achieving strategic agility with the banking industry

This paper will seek to assess the role of Cloud computing in achieving strategic agility within the UK banking sector and provides implications on how organizations in the banking sector can become more agile in their operations. Previous research has shed light on how using Cloud technology can enhance an organization’s innovation, which is a key factor in any rapidly changing sector. In order to assess the role Cloud technology has on achieving strategic agility in the banking sector, we identify the facilitators or barriers to achieving strategic agility successfully. An exploratory research design is adopted since there is little or no similar research in this area

Mid-J CO Emission From NGC 891: Microturbulent Molecular Shocks in Normal Star Forming Galaxies

We have detected the CO(6-5), CO(7-6), and [CI] 370 micron lines from the nuclear region of NGC 891 with our submillimeter grating spectrometer ZEUS on the CSO. These lines provide constraints on photodissociation region (PDR) and shock models that have been invoked to explain the H_2 S(0), S(1), and S(2) lines observed with Spitzer. We analyze our data together with the H_2 lines, CO(3-2), and IR continuum from the literature using a combined PDR/shock model. We find that the mid-J CO originates almost entirely from shock-excited warm molecular gas; contributions from PDRs are negligible. Also, almost all the H_2 S(2) and half of the S(1) line is predicted to emerge from shocks. Shocks with a pre-shock density of 2x10^4 cm^-3 and velocities of 10 km/s and 20 km/s for C-shocks and J-shocks, respectively, provide the best fit. In contrast, the [CI] line emission arises exclusively from the PDR component, which is best parameterized by a density of 3.2x10^3 cm^-3 and a FUV field of G_o = 100 for both PDR/shock-type combinations. Our mid-J CO observations show that turbulence is a very important heating source in molecular clouds, even in normal quiescent galaxies. The most likely energy sources for the shocks are supernovae or outflows from YSOs. The energetics of these shock sources favor C-shock excitation of the lines.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, 6 tables, accepted by Ap

An analysis of likes and dislikes for history and geography of 3360 sixth grade children

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Detection of the 13CO(J=6-5) Transition in the Starburst Galaxy NGC 253

We report the detection of 13CO(J=6-5) emission from the nucleus of the starburst galaxy NGC 253 with the redshift (z) and Early Universe Spectrometer (ZEUS), a new submillimeter grating spectrometer. This is the first extragalactic detection of the 13CO(J=6-5) transition, which traces warm, dense molecular gas. We employ a multi-line LVG analysis and find ~ 35% - 60% of the molecular ISM is both warm (T ~ 110 K) and dense (n(H2) ~ 10^4 cm^-3). We analyze the potential heat sources, and conclude that UV and X-ray photons are unlikely to be energetically important. Instead, the molecular gas is most likely heated by an elevated density of cosmic rays or by the decay of supersonic turbulence through shocks. If the cosmic rays and turbulence are created by stellar feedback within the starburst, then our analysis suggests the starburst may be self-limiting.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, accepted by ApJ Letter

Detection of the 158 micron [CII] Transition at z=1.3: Evidence for a Galaxy-Wide Starburst

We report the detection of 158 micron [CII] fine-structure line emission from MIPS J142824.0+352619, a hyperluminous (L_IR ~ 10^13 L_sun) starburst galaxy at z=1.3. The line is bright, and corresponds to a fraction L_[CII]/L_FIR = 2 x 10^-3 of the far-IR (FIR) continuum. The [CII], CO, and FIR continuum emission may be modeled as arising from photodissociation regions (PDRs) that have a characteristic gas density of n ~ 10^4.2 cm^-3, and that are illuminated by a far-UV radiation field ~10^3.2 times more intense than the local interstellar radiation field. The mass in these PDRs accounts for approximately half of the molecular gas mass in this galaxy. The L_[CII]/L_FIR ratio is higher than observed in local ULIRGs or in the few high-redshift QSOs detected in [CII], but the L_[CII]/L_FIR and L_CO/L_FIR ratios are similar to the values seen in nearby starburst galaxies. This suggests that MIPS J142824.0+352619 is a scaled-up version of a starburst nucleus, with the burst extended over several kiloparsecs.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted by ApJ Letter